


Baby I'm Cold Inside

by the_wanlorn



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Cliche, Hypothermia, Multi, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:11:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wanlorn/pseuds/the_wanlorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you can't feel cold, then why not be the one to jump in a frozen lake after a kid?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby I'm Cold Inside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ankaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankaret/gifts).



> Set before the season one finale.

If Audrey had known the day was going to end with her belly down on creaking ice, trying to fish her partner and a little kid out of the frozen river, she wouldn't have got up that morning. Or at least she wouldn't have left the B&B. She could be sitting in her room, toasty warm, reading a good book and not wondering if the ice was going to hold or what frostbite felt like or how long someone could survive lake water that cold. Of course, if she hadn't gotten up, then who knew what would happen without her there to pull them both out of the lake.

Really, it was amazing Nathan had survived all those years without her.

The water was dark, the dark of sluggish winter skies and slow-moving shapes lumbering across a distant plain. It made her tired and cold just watching it while she counted off the seconds since Nathan had jumped in. The ice sucking the heat out of her front didn't help either feeling, any more than the snow settling in her hair or the wind starting to blow did. The kids that had been on the ice were clustered on the shore, watching silently, like something out of a horror movie. Audrey couldn't tell if her skin was crawling from their stares or just from cold.

The day had started out nicely, with a visit to yet another minor car crash. Someone was icing over the steeper roads, turning them into sledding hills for the kids and adults alike, which was great as far as she was concerned. Unfortunately, some people seemed to think that experience with Maine winters gave them an immunity to the cold hard truth of a thick coat of ice on a steep road and insisted on trying to drive them, with the expected results.

Talking to a group of little kids -- okay, _Nathan_ talking to the kids -- about what they knew about who made the ice road they were sledding down led them to the lake. It was a mile and a half off the road and a group of older kids were skating around out near the center, playing a game that looked like a cross between hockey and tag. The kids had walked right by the "DANGER THIN ICE" sign to get out there, their tracks clear in the dusting of snow.

"Don't worry!" one of the littler kids yelled when he noticed her and Nathan on the shore. "Bobby made the ice safe."

It was almost like one of those Norman Rockwell paintings, right down to a little dog running with them, and a couple adults on the fringe of the group. She and Nathan struck out across the lake, becoming a part of the painting -- the two cops gone to cheerfully scold the group -- up until the ice cracked, the kid Nathan pointed out as Bobby disappeared down the hole, and Nathan dove in after him.

When he hadn't immediately come back up with the kid in tow, it had felt like her heart stopped for a moment. She'd seen a man pulled from a frozen river when she was twelve. He hadn't been in there long, but it was enough time for him to be unconscious when one of the older foster kids pulled him out and dead by the time the ambulance got to the hospital. It would be _just like_ Nathan to freeze to death under the ice after jumping in; he wouldn't be able to feel the cold, so of course it should be him that went in.

She'd sent one of the adults down to show Julia how to get to the lake once she hit the closest house, one to stay with the kids on the shore, and one was holding her legs, just in case.

"Come on, Nathan," she muttered. "If you're going to try to be a superhero, do it right."

"What?" the guy behind her asked.

She shook her head. Nathan had another ten seconds, then she was going in after him, and they'd either both drown, or she'd never let him forget that she'd had to rescue his bony ass from a frozen lake.

The kid bobbed up with three seconds to go, his skin pasty and his lips tinged with blue. She hauled him out by the back of his parka, glad of the single-digit temperatures that had everyone bundled up thick, giving her a nice handhold. The ice groaned under her, and she could see thin cracks spreading from the edge underneath her.

"Take him," she said, shoving the kid back toward the guy behind her like a shivering sack of potatoes. "Head back and meet the ambulance with him."

When she turned back, Nathan had his arms hooked over the ice and was stiffly pulling himself out of the water. She grabbed an arm and pulled, giving him the extra leverage he needed to slide up onto the ice. There were popping sounds coming from underneath them, almost like a BB gun going off in the distance.

"Back back _back_ ," Nathan said hoarsely. She was already scrambling backward, away from the hole, away from where the ice was cracking off in chunks behind Nathan, pushing herself to her feet and helping drag Nathan up as they slipped and slid toward shore. Maybe Nathan thought it was a great idea to freeze to death in a lake, but she didn't. When they got to dry land, the ice had settled, leaving a sea of floating chunks in a hole the size of a swimming pool out in the center. At least the snow had stopped.

Nathan's coat was waterlogged, lake water dripping steadily, but he wasn't making any move to take it off, even though one of the men left on shore had already shrugged out of his and was holding it out toward Nathan. This was going to be like that time he grabbed that puppy out of a fire, she knew it. _No, no, it's fine, just a little second degree burn, nothing to worry about, I can't even feel it, it can wait until the dog's checked out, my hand's not going to fall off, Parker, wait, are you_ disappointed _by that?_ and so on until she had considered knocking him out for being annoying and having a death wish.

"Nathan," she said, grabbing his arm before he could head down the trail toward where Julia probably was. The water sucked all the heat from her fingers in the time it took to say his name, leaving them stiff and numb.

He jerked away, looking back at her but not stopping. "I'm fine. Keep your jacket, Mark."

" _Nathan_ ," she said again, flexing her fingers and shoving them into her coat pocket to get some heat back in them. He was shivering so badly he couldn't even walk in a straight line, which she was pretty sure wasn't fine, even in Haven.

He was also ignoring her. _No, I don't want a robot hand, Parker._ So she wasn't going to waste her breath explaining in loud detail what an idiot he was until she could force him to listen. Instead, she shrugged and said, "Thanks anyway, Mike," ignoring him when he muttered "It's Mark" -- she had tried, okay, and the names were practically the same -- and followed Nathan back through the woods, waiting for him to fall over.

###

"I'm fine," Nathan said to Julia while she hung the thermometer back on its hook.

Audrey grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm out. "Look at how hard you're shivering. Your fingers are still blue." She let him pull away and watched as he tightened his hand into a fist. It didn't help the color or the shaking.

"I can't feel it. I'll be fine," he said through his teeth, like he shivered so hard he could barely talk every day.

"Julia," Audrey said, turning to her in hopes she would be the voice of reason, but she was back with the kid in the ambulance, covering him with another silver blanket, like the one slipping off Nathan's shoulders.

"Stop arguing," she said, not looking up. "Nathan, go home, bundle up, drink warm fluids. Unless you want to come to the hospital with us, go. Take the blanket, you can give it back next time you come in for an MRI."

"Thanks Julia," Nathan said, shooting a smug look Audrey's way as he pushed himself up off the edge of the ambulance. A smug look that didn't quite survive her pulling the truck keys out of his pocket before he could protest.

"You still can't drive," she said, dangling them in front of his face before heading to the truck to turn the heaters on full blast. When he got in, she reached across to lay the back of her hand on his cheek. The touch was brief before he pulled away, but it was enough. "You're freezing."

"So you keep telling me," he said leaning against the truck door and watching her while he shook.

She put the car in gear and pulled out. "Just because you're broken doesn't mean you have to be the one to jump in the lake all the time," she pointed out, just in case he'd forgotten that. He turned away from her and looked out the window, his mouth set in a hard line. "What were you thinking?"

"That someone went through the ice," he said through his teeth. "And you were there to pull me out if something went wrong."

She reached out to squeeze his hand -- for her own reassurance -- only to find that his arms were crossed under the silver blanket. "I'm not always there when you pull stunts like that."

"Yeah," he said, turning to look at her again, a small smile on his face, "you are."

###

"You don't have to stay," Nathan said when she followed him through the door and made a beeline for his kitchen.

"When your fingers start falling off, someone needs to be here to collect them." She punched a series of buttons on the coffee maker, then called, "Besides, do you really think you could work this thing right now?"

"My fingers are fine, Parker," he called from behind the bedroom door, where he was changing into something dry and hopefully warm. When he came out, he was in a sweats and a sweater, still looking tinged with blue and shaking hard enough to need a hand on the wall as he walked toward her.

"So far," she said, handing him a cup of coffee and briefly touching his hand as she did. He was still ice cold. "They still feel like they'd break off if I high fived you."

"Then stop touching me." He drained half the mug in one go, and she decided not to tell him that it was still too hot to drink. Could you even get burned with hypothermia or did the heat just bring your body back to normal temperatures? She'd find out soon, and in the meantime filled a thermos with the rest of the pot.

"I will when you stop shivering," she said while reaching over to feel the back of his neck with the hand that wasn't warm from holding the thermos. His mug crashed to the ground and a pool of coffee spread out around it. "See? You can't even drink coffee right."

Once they cleaned up the mess, they went to watch TV and Nathan buried himself in blankets, with only a little help from her. While he shivered pitifully under the pile, occasionally blowing on and then sipping the coffee, she flipped through channels. Every so often, once her hand warmed up again, she'd reach over and touch the back of his neck to donate some body heat.

"Stop it," he said once his shivering had stopped knocking small buildings down. He pushed her hand away and pulled a blanket up, like that would protect him.

"You'll stop feeling like you're dead faster if I'm adding body heat," she said, reaching out again.

"I can't feel it either way," he said with a frown, intercepting her hand with a blanket and leaning away from her.

"So you like being your own personal earthquake." She grabbed one of his hands as he started shivering harder and rubbed it between hers, sliding close to him so he couldn't keep pulling away.

"I don't like being cold," he said, "so stop touching me."

She narrowed her eyes and pulled him even closer so she could check his pupils. She wasn't sure at what point of hypothermia confusion set in, or if it was even something she would be able to see like with a concussion. "Did Julia check you for brain damage?"

"I wasn't in the water long enough for that," he said, his breath warm on her face even though his skin was still deathly pale.

"Are you sure?" she asked, taking his other hand to warm it up too. "Isn't memory loss or hallucinations one of the signs?" He should know, since he was the one who gave her a big speech about it during the first blizzard. _Maine isn't like Boston, Parker, we get real snow here._

"Memory lo-" he started, before breaking off and staring at her with deer-in-the-headlights eyes. "Uh."

"Remember?" she asked, her worry morphing into a suspicion as he sat there and shivered and stared and didn't freak out over forgetting something big like that. "You can't feel anything? Like this?" She pinched the skin of his neck hard between her fingernails.

" _Ow_." He jerked on hand away from her to rub the red indents and glared sourly at her. But he hadn't made a move to free his other hand from her grip, even though he was shivering and cold and claiming that she was making it worse.

It clicked. "You can feel this," she said, squeezing his hand. His Trouble hadn't disappeared -- he couldn't feel all of the things all of the time -- that wasn't the sort of secret he would be able to keep from her for longer than thirty seconds. She would probably have been his first phone call.

But this was Haven. Haven didn't run by normal rules that said it was all or nothing. Haven had its own rules that said anything goes, especially if it's going wrong. But sometimes, it went right.

He nodded cautiously, still rubbing his neck, still shivering, but didn't say anything. That was okay, because she was pretty sure she had already worked it out for herself. Even in Haven, two plus two usually equaled four-ish.

"And the blankets. And how cold you are."

He nodded again, still rubbing his neck a little, like even that little bit of pain was welcome because at least it was _something_. It made her want to see just how he reacted to different sensations and what she could make him do.

She let go and sat back, putting more space between them than usual. "And now you can't."

"No," he said, flexing his hand while he stared at it, then sinking back into the cushion with both his hands fisted in his lap to stop them from shaking from the shivers. When he looked up at her again, he looked awful crushed for someone who was telling her to stop touching him less than five minutes before.

When she held out her hand again, he stared at it a moment before reaching out and slowly sliding his fingers between hers. His hand was still ice cold, and he immediately started shivering harder, but when he looked up again, he was smiling like he'd just seen a baby off in the distance.

That only lasted for a few seconds before he was pulling back and saying, "Really, though, I don't-"

"I have a solution," she said, tightening her grip on his hand as she slid closer and lifted the edge of the blankets, letting out what little heat he'd managed to accumulate.

"Making me freeze to death faster?" he asked, clenching his teeth to stop the chattering.

"Yes." She pushed him over a little and rearranged him to her satisfaction so his arm was over her shoulders, and she could feel every shiver along her side, and the blankets were over both of them. "This side of you is warm, that side is cold."

"That's still half of me that's cold," he said, like he expected her to be a miracle worker who could be two people at once.

"I can go back over there then," she said, nodding to the other side of the couch, "and you can keep trying to drink coffee without spilling it on yourself." His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on her arm, and she laughed and patted his hand. "Or I'll stay here and let you steal all my body heat, so I'm the frozen one."

She thought he might have whispered "Thank you" into her hair, but she wasn't sure and it didn't seem worth pursuing.

###

"How are you doing?" she asked during the next commercial break. She was starting to feel a little cold herself, and Nathan's lips hadn't lost their blue tinge yet, nor had he stopped shivering. He was like one of those vibrating chairs in the mall, except the vibrating was only on one side and wasn't regular enough to feel good.

"Cold," he grumbled, sliding a little lower on the couch so that more of him was covered by blanket.

"Besides that," she said.

"There's nothing but the cold," he said, looking so miserable it was hard not to laugh at him and how melodramatic he was being.

"Half cold is better than all cold." She took his other hand and began the slow process of chafing heat back into it.

"No cold is better."

"You are really grumpy." She brought his hand up to her mouth to breathe on it, making the corners of his mouth twitch up almost involuntarily. "I thought you grew up here; shouldn't you be used to this?"

"We've had this thing called fire for a while now, Parker." His hands were beginning to warm up and she could only hope that heat would spread to the rest of him. It would have been so much easier with two people. "Maybe you've heard of it."

"Maybe next time you'll think twice about jumping in a frozen lake," she said instead of responding. She could think of one person to call to come be a second her. Nathan wouldn't object to him too hard. Probably.

"Maybe next time I won't let you follow me home," he returned, but his thumb was rubbing absently over the bare skin of her arm, making her curl her toes inside her shoes.

"I wasn't the one doing the following." She kicked off her shoes and drew up her feet, tucking them underneath her so her toes were just touching Nathan's leg.

"Don't get your cold feet near me," he warned, one hand dropping down to her knee like he was going to push her away.

"You'd be a lot more convincing if you weren't smiling." She said, looking up at him and thinking of the hundred different ways she could come up with to warm him up faster, eighty of which involved Duke.

"I'm not smiling, I'm grimacing. With cold." His hand was still on her knee, though, rubbing back and forth distractingly. She wasn't sure that she wanted him to stop.

"You lie, Nathan Wuornos."

"You could switch sides," he said, not denying it.

"Now that you're finally not making _me_ cold?" She prodded his leg with her toes. It was a lie, anyway. She was considering going and stealing one of his sweaters, and turning up the heat on the way back. "I don't think so."

"But-" he started, breaking off when Audrey slid her hand onto his thigh and swallowed.

"Stop talking," she said, leaning into him a little more, her hand sliding down to rest comfortably on his knee. "You need to save your energy."

"I'm hypothermic, not dying," he said, his voice shaky.

"Not yet. But if you're as cold as you keep telling me you are that might be happening soon." She smirked and sat up, digging her phone out of her pocket as she did, and hit the speed dial for Duke's number. "Hey Duke," she said when he picked up. "I need you to come by Nathan's. He took a dive into a frozen lake and needs someone to keep him warm."

"Why are you calling _him_?" Nathan yelped, reaching for the phone, but Audrey bent away and pushed his shoulder back with one hand. If he really wanted to take it away from her, he wouldn't be letting her hold him back so easily.

"Yeah, why are you calling _me_?" Duke sounded more curious than unhappy, and Nathan was looking at her like he wasn't sure if he should be stopping her, or encouraging her, or running the other way as fast as possible.

"Both of you shut it," she said, covering Nathan's mouth with one hand and wishing Duke were next to her so she could cover his, too. "If I move, Nathan, this side is just going to get cold again, and then you'll be whining about that."

"I still don't see what this has to do with me," Duke said, "and I have important things-"

"Drinking is only important when you're about to die, Duke. Besides, you'll be able to hold this over him forever," she said while Nathan said, "I'm not whining!" against her hand.

"You want someone to warm up that side," she said while Duke sighed in her ear. "And there's only one of me. Who else would you want me to call?"

" _Anyone_ else," he said, still slightly muffled by her hand, which he wasn't making any move to get away from, and he looked a little crestfallen when he said, "Besides, I don't think that's how it works."

"Right. You can feel this," she moved her hand and ran a thumb over his lips, making him inhale sharply. "And you can feel the blankets and that you're _cold_ , but you won't be able to feel Duke."

" _What?_ " Duke said.

"I'm hanging up now," she said into the phone. "Bring alcohol."

"When do I not?" he muttered before he broke the connection with a click.

Nathan was still staring at her, his eyes wide and dark, and his lips parted a little. He swallowed hard when she put the phone down and licked his lips, but didn't say anything.

"Trust me," she said softly, leaning up to kiss his cheek before dropping her phone on the couch beside her and settling back against his arm.

###

When Duke knocked on the door, Audrey yelled, "It's open," and turned the TV down a little. She slid down the couch, taking the blankets with her and assuming Nathan would follow, so Duke would have somewhere to sit.

"You didn't have to call him," Nathan muttered, again, lifting his arm so she could lean against him again. It was more comfortable than it had any right to be. Especially now that, compared to when he came out of the lake, he was barely shivering at all.

"Well don't you two look cozy," Duke said, standing in the doorway of the living room. "And slightly blue around the edges."

"Duke," Nathan said, which Audrey supposed was meant to be a greeting and not the warning it usually was.

"Why am I needed here again?" Duke asked, not coming any further into the room. He looked between the two of them, but mostly focused on Audrey, waiting for her to explain everything to him.

"Because this is what friends do." Audrey leaned across Nathan and held open the other side of the blanket. "Sit."

"Just to be clear," Duke said, "which one of you am I friends with in this scenario? And that wasn't an answer."

"Sit down, Duke," she said, not bothering to answer such a ridiculous question. "You're interrupting sharks eating people." Nathan sighed and took the blanket from her, jerking his head at Duke at the same time.

Duke folded himself onto the couch and pulled the blanket up. Audrey threaded her fingers through Nathan's again on his now free hand. When Duke moved a little closer, his leg against Nathan's, Nathan's fingers clenched around hers, though he was staring intently at the TV as though not paying attention to either of them. She squeezed his hand back anyway.

"I ask again, why am I here sitting next to a human icicle?" Duke sounded like he was getting ready to leave, at odds with how he was stretching his legs out in front of the couch and eying the remote on Audrey's lap.

"Nathan went in a lake after a kid who fell through the ice," she said.

"You seem to have that under control."

"Apparently, if I'm touching him, Nathan can feel again," she said. Nathan shot her a wounded look, which was ridiculous; if he wanted it to be a secret, he should have said so. It was _Duke_. "And he doesn't like being cold."

Duke stared at her for a moment, then looked up and muttered, "Of course he can. That makes perfect sense in this town." Then he leaned back speculatively to eye Nathan. "So if I-"

"Don't even think about it," Nathan said before Audrey could find out whether Duke was about to ask about kissing or punching. "Why don't we stop talking about it and just," he waved the hand he had around Audrey's shoulders, nearly clipping her in the ear, "watch TV."

Duke looked like he was about to say more, but Audrey glared him into silence. She tucked her feet back under her again and prodded Nathan's arm into a more comfortable position. He was stiff like he'd just climbed out of the lake again, but he wasn't moving to get up, so she counted it as a success. When Duke went for the remote, she snatched it away and leaned back out of reach, then punched him in the shoulder when he threatened to get up and change the channel manually to something that didn't involve so much screaming.

And slowly, slowly, Nathan began to relax.

###

"So you can feel this." Duke poked Nathan hard in the shoulder, making him flinch into Audrey before she elbowed him back over.

"Yes," he said, shooting a warning look Duke's way.

But Duke either had a death wish or was too enthralled by putting his hands all over Nathan to notice. He poked him again. "And this."

"Yes," Nathan said, glancing at Audrey. She shrugged. Until Duke started with her, it was Nathan's problem.

"And th-"

Nathan caught his hand before he could make contact again, and pushed it down firmly in between them, holding it there so Duke couldn't bruise him more. "I swear, Crocker, if you poke me one more time, I'm going to arrest you for assaulting a police officer."

"No need to get touchy," Duke said, holding up his free hand in surrender. He looked at Audrey, followed her eyes down to where Nathan had his hand pinned, and then looked back up at her, his eyes focusing on her tongue as she licked her lips. He started to lean slowly toward her, toward both of them.

"Then stop touching me," Nathan said, breaking the moment.

"You want me gone," Duke said, sitting back and folding his arms over his chest. "I'm out of here, just say the words. I have a reputation to maintain, anyway. One that does not involve hanging out with cops."

"I think your reputation is pretty much dead, since your best friends are cops," Audrey said.

"That hurts, Audrey," Duke said, grabbing at the blankets when they tried to slip down off his lap. "That hurts a lot."

Nathan was suspiciously silent.

###

"You know Nathan, when I told you to go jump in a lake last week, I didn't mean it literally," Duke said after Audrey made him get up to make another pot of coffee, claiming that neither she nor Nathan could do it, because his fingers were in danger of falling off.

"And just because you can't feel it doesn't mean you can't get hypothermia," Audrey added as Duke sat back down.

"Is this really what you both want to remember as your last words to me when I die of hypothermia?" Nathan was clearly trying for serious, but failed miserably.

"I don't know," Duke said, laying a hand against the side of Nathan's neck. "You don't feel all that cold to me anymore."

"You're right," Audrey said. "It's downright warm under here now. We can probably leave now, Duke," she said, both of them leaning forward to grin around Nathan at each other.

Nathan, who had been smiling slightly all afternoon, even when trying to be angry at Duke, didn't say anything, but his face dropped to a neutral and he nodded. He let go of her hand and brought his arm down off the back of the couch, where it had been resting behind Duke's head.

She and Duke looked at each other, then at Nathan, then at each other again. Nathan wasn't asking them to stay, but he wasn't hurrying either one of them out the door, either. Which she had half expected him to do to Duke, if only out of some foolish pride.

"The movie isn't over yet," Duke said slowly.

Audrey started to grin. "It hasn't actually started yet."

"My point stands," Duke said. He leaned back and hooked his arm over the back of the couch, his hand resting behind her head. She slid her hand underneath Nathan's and settled back again.

He looked between the two of them, trying to frown through his smile. "A dying man, and this is what you're going to remember. Making fun of him while he takes his last breaths."

"Weren't you insisting that you were fine when this all happened?" Audrey couldn't resist asking.

"Shut up, Parker."

###

As the night wore on, Nathan became more loose-limbed and relaxed, sprawling -- slightly, given how neither Audrey nor Duke had moved away even after the blankets had slipped to the floor -- and looking content. Audrey didn't know what would happen tomorrow, if anything would happen tomorrow or if Duke and Nathan would just pretend this entire day never happened and would go back to being friends who sometimes hated each other, but right at that moment, Nathan looked happy and Duke had a silly smile on his face, and she could feel herself joining them.

Duke had been idly playing with her hair, twisting a lock around one finger and then letting it go, sometimes tugging lightly like he wanted to remind her that he was there too, it wasn't just Nathan. It would have been nice if it didn't feel suspiciously like he was putting tiny knots in her hair with every twirl.

She reached up awkwardly to grab his wrist, then dropped his hand on Nathan's head. "If you need to play with someone's hair, use his."

Duke's hand was still for a moment and Nathan was staring at her, his tongue flicking out to lick his lips. Then Duke slowly ran his fingers up the back of Nathan's head, through his hair, and Nathan shivered in a way that had nothing to do with being cold.

"Stop it," Nathan said, his voice rough. Duke shrugged and dropped his hand, and everyone was quiet for a moment.

Then Nathan leaned his head back, carefully nonchalant, and stared at the ceiling. He let go of Audrey's hand and shifted a little, so she wasn't touching him at all. "You know," he said slowly, "they say the fewer clothes everyone is wearing, the less likely it is someone will die from hypothermia."

Audrey and Duke stared across him at each other. As the silence dragged out, Nathan swallowed hard.

"This isn't porn," Duke said.

"It could be," Nathan said quietly.

"Nathan," Audrey finally said. "Did you just..."

"And if I did?" he asked the ceiling.

Instead of answering, she got on her knees on the couch so she could lean over him, took his face between her hands, and kissed him. When she was sure he wasn't going to go anywhere -- definitely, not, by how tightly he was holding her waist and the noises he made when she slid one hand up to grip his hair -- she flailed her other hand out toward Duke. Nathan was still making soft noises into her mouth when Duke caught her hand, and when she opened her eyes, she saw that he was doing dirty things to Nathan's neck.

If she had any sense, she would stop and find out why her, why _them_ , and why now. Whether it was really them, and now, or just Nathan saying yes to anything, seizing a chance to feel something because he didn't know when the Troubles were going to end.

But this was Nathan, who spent half his time discreetly making doe eyes at her, and the other half failing at the discreet part. She pulled back, Nathan trying to follow her before he caught himself and stopped. He looked thoroughly disheveled already, his hair mussed and red marks on his collarbone.

"Audrey?" Duke said when she let go of him, for once not sounding entirely sure of himself. But she leaned over Nathan and fisted her hand in Duke's shirt, pulling him to meet her halfway so she could get a taste of him too.

"Oh, fuck," Nathan groaned. When she pulled back from Duke -- who followed her for an instant, too, what was with that? It wasn't like she was going to be running out of there -- Nathan was flushed and breathing hard, looking a little dazed.

"Bedroom," she said, and Nathan nodded even though it wasn't a question. She offered a hand to each of them, to help them up from the couch, and led them down the hall.

THE END


End file.
